Deviations of Genius
by Aliathe
Summary: Once there was a girly boy and a boyish girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Well, you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5." But they're still friends. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. [au] [anachronistic drabbles] [fem!deidara]
1. Evidence

**Summary:**

 _Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl,_ _brat._ " " _Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were_ _5_ _when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-Chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though._

* * *

The blond was new.

Sasori knew that the blond was new, because he had never seen him in the Sunagakure playground before.

Besides, a Suna native wouldn't be sitting criss-crossed in the sandpit, scooping up grains of the golden material, and letting them run through his fair-skinned fingers like a cascading waterfall of promised riches and glory.

Pardon the cliche.

His hair was long for a boy, barely brushing his narrow shoulders, and fell in sleek straight lines, so every hair would cause a slightly rippling effect when he shifted his position.

It was… oddly vain.

Sasori assumed that he was a civilian; shinobi-in-training, which was what Academy students essentially were, did not typically care for appearances unless they were from a Clan.

A light stepping sound drew the blond's attention away from the sand, as Sasori moved forward with all the grace that a five-year-old could muster up.

Considering that he was a 'prodigious' Academy student with a lot of pride and perhaps more contempt than he was strictly allotted, it was pretty freakin' graceful.

The blond turned to Sasori, and cocked his head in obvious curiosity; the bright sunlight of early-day Suna in autumn, not hot enough for the commonplace summer heat waves, but just warm enough for a pleasant 'basking' feeling, highlighted his delicate features and large blue eyes, wide-open at the presence of someone unfamiliar.

(More than blue, Sasori reflected later, much later, months later.

They were a shade of blue that was too light to be cerulean, too dark to be ice, too un-green to be the ocean currents.

Perhaps a fast-moving river?

Constantly changing, swifter than thought, deceptively shallow, but delighting in mischief such as knocking unwary travelers off their feet, reducing haughty egotists into floundering wrecks soaked to the bone in sun-warmed water.

Unpredictability fit the blond's character, from what he had seen so far.)

"Ohayō!" he greeted him cheerfully.

Bubbly, even.

"I'm Deidara; who're you?" he continued, holding out an expectant hand.

Sasori frowned mildly.

Quite clearly, the blond was one of those accursed creatures known as 'morning people', who seemed to exist for the sole reason of annoying those not nearly so acclimatized to waking up at ungodly hours of the day.

He wasn't exactly a night owl himself, but still. The blond's exuberance at 5 a.m. irritated him on the principle of the matter.

The only reason _he_ was up right now was because he'd forgotten that there was no school on Saturdays, and had woken early as usual, for running through some basic katas and chakra control techniques before the Academy began.

His mother had shooed him outside to 'socialize', claiming that it would be good for him, and that 'you're already up anyway'.

Never being one to resist his parents, he'd obediently wandered outside, with the intention to head to the deserted park and work on his chakra strings in peaceful silence.

Only, the park/playground wasn't deserted.

Which threw off his plans a bit.

Small steps, right? He could think up a way to deal with this… unforeseen variable.

"Sasori," he muttered curtly, eyeing the proffered hand.

Slim, untanned by heavy sunlight exposure, neatly trimmed cuticles, healthy moisturized skin.

Again, vain.

Or simply lucky to have good skin genes, with a conscience about appearance.

His hand was slender for a child; the fingers were longer and thinner, slightly callused at the tips, not the short and rounder kid hands with baby fat still clinging.

Artist's hands.

(So similar to his own.)

Maybe it was just wistful imagination, just Sasori's desire for someone to discuss his art with.

To properly _appreciate_ his art.

(Because it wasn't perfect yet, okay, it wasn't even magnificent like Granny Chiyo's were hailed as, but he was getting there, and some part of him desperately wanted someone to be with him along the stages of getting there.)

HIs parents were supportive, yes, but in a distant, slightly confused sort of way, like they didn't really understand why he was so passionate about his art.

Like they didn't truly understand _him_.

Komushi could appreciate his art to some degree, but that was because he clearly saw the beginnings of a glorious future for Sasori, whose puppets were already seen as remarkable for his age, and wanted to be part of that future.

Oh, Sasori wouldn't deny that Komushi truly wanted to be his friend as well.

However, it was Komushi's aspirations for fame, and his role as a messenger for Granny Chiyo, that had first sparked their kinship.

And he wasn't an artist himself, had no interest in art beyond how it could benefit him in battle.

A decent person, yet one who had no patience for the finer intricacies and meanings of life.

… Whatever it was, it was something.

As the pause started fringing on 'awkward', he reached unsurely for the hand, and took it in his grasp, shaking it once, before quickly letting go.

The skin-on-skin contact felt… cool.

Clean, at least, for someone who had been sifting through sand for some time now.

.

.

.

"Great!" Deidara cheered, blinking a few times to get rid of the sand specks collecting on her eyelashes. "Wanna play with me?"

This 'Sasori' was the quiet sort; he barely spoke, though he consented to playing with her in the sandbox.

Really, there was far too much sand in Sunagakure, in her opinion.

It was still a nice change from the constant grit and rocky mountains of Iwagakure.

The Land of Wind's grit, in contrast, was slightly softer, to be sure.

Watching the rolling, undulating dunes of the desert on her way to Suna had been fun, anyway.

Kaa-san had told her, as she carried her on her back and ran over the golden mounds, that those dunes were what the sea looked like, if the dunes were water and moved more.

She'd been entranced.

Iwa wasn't in a land-locked country, but it was still a fair distance from the seashore, and the waters up there were supposedly cold and frigid, only good for pearl-diving and for landing the few ocean-treading traders that came that way.

Deidara had never seen the sea, being 5 and an Iwa resident and a Kekkei Genkai user from a fairly respected if small Iwagakure Clan.

There hadn't been a good enough reason to bring her to the seashore, other than 'she wants to see what an endless expanse of water looks like', which was considered a mere childish whim.

She'd gotten mad and sulky over the constant rejection, especially since her older brothers and father were always running missions to exotic places and had seen plenty of seas in their time.

But she was the sole female bearer of their Explosion Release bloodline, which apparently _meant_ something, other than 'she's a kunoichi and can't participate in the competition for becoming heir', other than 'you're weaker and more fragile and will have to be homeschooled by your mother until you're old enough to test for Genin', other than 'you'll never be as good as your brothers'.

(It was infuriating at times, and there were moments when she just wanted to throw a clay spider at their stupid faces and burn them all in beautiful, glorious art.

Kami, she wanted to do that _so bad_.

Stupid kami-damned artless _bastards_.

[Maybe for real, too, since her father wasn't exactly known as a shining paragon of morality, and so long as they were all blond and had the Kekkei Genkai of the Shinsei Clan, no one could ever tell the difference.]

Then her mother would lay a warning hand on her thin shoulder and steer her carefully away, cradling her fingers in her own, unafraid of the fangs and tongues.

"Deidara," she'd say, eyes deep and eyes dark, and that would be that.

She always obliged her mother.)

And the sand of Suna felt pleasant, too, all warm and smooth and grainy on top, rubbing away the dead skin of her hands into perfect smoothness, all chilly and damp and clumped underneath, like a differently-colored new clay type that fell apart moments after she tried compressing it a free-standing shape.

Nevertheless, she kept on trying to mold the sand, cross-legged and face scrunched up into concentration, her Kekkei Genkai occasionally helping out with flickering darts of pale pink.

Sasori, silently tracing lines into his flattened patch of sand, asked her a couple of questions, which she happily agreed to answer, since, well, he _was_ taking the time to play with her, even if their 'playing' was basically her humming and attempting to form sculptures and him sitting across from her digging seals for practice.

"Where are you from?"

"Iwagakure! Me and Kaa-san came here for negotiations! Well, _she_ did, and she let me tag along because she knew I wanted to see the ocean but couldn't and she's nice like that, so she brought me to somewhere different as a consolation prize of sorts!"

"So, you're… a family of merchants?" he hazarded a guess, eyes narrowing and a face so serious it made her want to throw sand at it.

She didn't, though, because Kaa-san would inevitably find out and stare at her with that disappointed look.

Still.

 _Way_ too serious.

Also, his cheeks were pudgy with lingering baby fat, and coupled with his overly-mature attitude, Deidara had to exercise some serious self-control to hold back from patting and pinching and pulling the sides of his face.

Kami, the things she did for the sake of a tentative maybe-friend.

"Nope! I'm not a civvie, I'm going to be a ninja," she corrected him, not using 'kunoichi'.

There were connotations attached to the difference between a kunoichi and a shinobi.

Even when times progressed, modernizing slightly overall, and even when 'kunoichi' is technically just the term for a female ninja…

There were connotations, and Deidara resented those connotations, and now she's going to stop thinking about things that make her mad before she does something impulsive and misses her new maybe-friend's reply.

"I… see," he said, eyebrows knitting a little closer together, tone _just_ skeptical enough to imply ambiguous confusion.

"But then," he continued, pushing away the sand he'd been writing in, "why are you not training instead, if you are truly serious about becoming a ninja?"

She scrunched up her face into a distasteful expression.

"Okay, you are way too serious for a kid," she decided, self-control slipping, and voicing her former thoughts.

"Like, do you even know what 'fun' is? Fun is what you do as a kid. Because you're a kid. Who wants to grow up so fast and become an adult? Adults have icky stuff like responsibility and work and they're always sad. Sad for a _reason_. The reason being that they're adults. Have what fun you still can have, before you grow up too much and people start piling societal expectations onto your shoulders."

He appeared faintly stunned.

"What?" Deidara scowled defensively. "I can use fancy-shmancy words like 'societal expectations' too, y'know. Just because I don't always speak as nicely as you might do doesn't mean I'm _dumb_."

Because kami knows she's gotten her fair share of 'dumb blond' jokes in Iwa.

It was more of a gentle, expected ribbing than anything else, since the Shinsei Clan was moderately respected for their great destructive powers, but it was still annoying to experience.

Sasori nodded, and shrugged.

"... sorry."

Scrutinizing him suspiciously for a long moment, she pronounced him to be a person who didn't apologize often, and thus took what she could get.

"Apology accepted," she graciously declared.

As these idle questioning chit-chats go, passions are soon brought up.

In specifics: shared passions.

Which meant the blond and the redhead, the blond smoothing off some sand from her packed-tight sphere, the redhead levitating a layer of sand over his hands for chakra control, reached the topic of art.

That was a discussion far shorter and less explosive than it had the potential to be, particularly if it had happened when they were older and more lethal and Deidara had mastered her Explosion Release Kekkei Genkai.

It still devolved into a shouting match, of course.

Thankfully, it was still early in the morning, around 6:45, so there weren't many people in the Sunagakure playground.

Or, um.

Any people other than themselves.

Not that they noticed; they were too caught up in trying to establish their own very vehement ideas of art as the 'correct' one.

"Art is something that lasts for all posterity, all eternity! Art is eternal and immortal, and you'd better acknowledge that before you can consider yourself a true artist!" Sasori growled, clearly stoked by the mention of his favorite subject to wax poetic on.

(He didn't _really_ wax poetic on it, but it was the closest to it that he'd ever get, in all likeliness.

That counted, right?)

"Excuse me!? I am _so_ a true artist, yeah! Art is fleeting, it is transient, it is beautiful _precisely_ because it cannot be captured! It is here for a glimpse and gone in the next, yeah, a teasing flash of revelation and understanding of art's deep meaning! An artist, a true artist, is one who knows that they will never know the extent of their art, yeah!" Deidara roared back, eyes glowing blue anger and hair stiffening with indignation.

(Well, no, none of that actually happened, but she _was_ angry, and she _was_ indignant, and she _did_ tense up with coiled adrenaline.

That counted, right?)

"... I admit that your translation of what a true artist is holds some grain of truth, but your interpretation of _art_ is definitely skewed!"

"Oh, yeah!? W-Well, my kaa-san said that art can mean different things to different people! So they're _all_ right, all the interpretations of art, because those interpretations are, um, 'personal and unique to how they feel'," she carefully quoted her mother.

"A-And she also said that everyone has the right to be wrong! So there!" she finished off furiously, slightly drained from her spur-of-the-moment rant, jabbing a stern finger into his chest.

It kinda hurt, since it was really bony, but she grimly kept up her severe, 'don't-mess-with-me' expression that she'd copied from her mother, and vindictively hoped that her fingernail (all caked underneath with gray clay and gold sand that her mother was sure to scold her for later and cut and clean) was at least digging somewhat painfully into his skin, through the thin gauzy fabric of a Suna native's clothes.

He wasn't even paying attention to the fingernail, though.

"What is that?" he asked blankly, staring down at the tip of _something_ that had just spat a clump of sand onto the front of his shirt.

"Is that a _tongue_ -" he started, before being interrupted by Deidara snatching back her hand, face flushing a burning pink that began curling into pale scarlet.

"It's a Kekkei Genkai thing, okay!?" she hissed sensitively, bristling but remembering to keep her voice quiet, like Kaa-san had always warned her to do when talking about the Shinsei's Explosion Release outside of their Compound, and _especially_ when outside of Iwa.

There was a low-level Genjutsu her mother usually cast on her hands when traveling, shallow enough to not warrant notice, a simple one that prevented others from focusing too much on them unless they already knew something was peculiar.

(Having sand spit at you out of someone's palms would count as peculiar, methinks.)

Minorly startled at the laid-back blond getting prickly and worked up over the extra mouths on her hands, but understanding of the paranoia surrounding bloodlines (Suna had a fair few of them; not as many as Konoha, naturally, since _no one_ had as many prominent bloodlines as Konoha did), Sasori cautiously backed off.

"... Whatever," he muttered stoically, which was essentially 'backing off' for him.

When he seemed to have no problems with her Kekkei Genkai, Deidara eyed him warily for an instance more, then reverted to her cheery personality, contentedly spending the next hour refining her sphere-sculpture and entertaining light chatter.

.

.

.

Stuff like:

"How long will you be staying in Suna?"

"Two more days and three more nights! Hey, what's your favorite food, yeah?"

"I don't have a preference. Food is food. It's simply sustenance, fuel for the body's functions."

"Geez, still way too serious, yeah. I think you're a spicy kind of person! Desert food is supposed to be spicy, anyway. Stuff like cactus and peppers, yeah! I like bakudan, myself, though I'd never say no to ice-cream. We don't get enough of ice-cream in Iwa, yeah, and Suna seems to have even less."

"Cactus and peppers? Cactus isn't spicy, and Suna delicacies aren't all about peppers."

"But do you like spicy foods, yeah?"

"... You're oddly intent on this for some reason."

"That's not an answerrrrrrr…"

"Stop whining, brat."

"How am I a brat!? We're, like, the same age, yeah! Practically! I think!"

"I'm five."

"I'm five too, so hah! Birthday?"

"... November 8th."

"Ahah! May 5th, yeah! Suck it!"

"Suck what?"

"... I don't really know, actually. It's just a saying I heard, yeah. I guess it means to taste defeat, yeah?"

"Hm. Maybe."

"My point being, you can't call me 'brat' anymore, yeah! You sound just like my brothers and my dad, too…"

"You don't get along with them?"

"They're stupid and mean and I hate them, yeah."

"...?"

"How are you asking a question without even saying anything, yeah!?"

"Talent and skill. … brat."

"Stop that, yeah!"

"...?"

"Oh, you did _not_ just un-verbally say 'or what'!"

"...? And 'un-verbally' isn't a real word."

Deidara threw a handful of sand at his face, Sasori dodged most but not all of it.

The Epic War of Sand commenced.

When 7:30 came, both were bright-eyed and pinked with exertion, Deidara grinning widely and laughing even as he grumbled about getting the sand out of his hair later, Sasori smiling faintly and smirking even as he listened to him grumbling about getting the sand out of his hair later.

"It's a draw," he suddenly said, referring to their little mini-battle.

"...?" he glanced at him.

"It's a draw," he repeated, sitting up straighter and meeting his mauve eyes directly, something harder resonating in his voice, something harder and softer at the same time. "That means you have to come tomorrow at the same time so we can have a rematch, yeah. Got it?"

He stretched out his hand, a reenactment of their meeting roughly two-and-a-half hours before.

A bridge, him handing him a key, a choice.

Sasori looked at the thin, slender, pale fingers.

'Artist's hands', he remembered thinking.

He slowly reached out and shook it.

"Got it," he confirmed, his smile fading but somewhat warmer in a way he didn't quite understand yet.

Deidara beamed, even wider and more radiant than before, all shine and sparkle and very close to blinding him.

Then another voice called from a distance away, on the edges of the playground.

"Musume-chan!" a pretty women in her mid-twenties hailed, large blue eyes and fine features and short ash-blond curls, standing tall in a close-fitting gray outfit.

"Kaa-san!" Deidara excitedly shouted back, bursting into a level of hyperactivity drawn from his seemingly infinite reserves of energy, as if he'd completely forgotten his state of exhaustion a few seconds ago.

… Hold on a second.

Rewind, backtrack, replay.

"'Musume'?" Sasori blurted in bewilderment.

"Well, yeah," he said, bewildered at _his_ bewilderment. "She can't exactly call me her _son_ , now can she?"

There was a pause that was slowly but surely and steadily edging it's way into 'awkward'.

Blinking, Deidara peered closer at Sasori.

"Wait, you didn't…" he, um, _she_ said in dawning sort of horrified amusement.

"You thought I was a _guy_ , yeah!?"

Sasori shrugged uncomfortably.

"You look rather androgynous, and 'Deidara' isn't a very gender-specific name," he pointed out in self-justification, the slow singeing of embarrassment starting to smolder under his skin, gritty with sand from their impromptu 'fight'.

"But _still_ ," h- _she_ repeated.

She didn't seem to be mad, however, just shocked with a degree of finding it to be funny.

"Musume-chan!" her mother called again, causing Deidara to jerk to attention.

"We're still on for tomorrow, yeah?" she whispered urgently, uncertainly, getting up and brushing sheets and slabs of sand off of her.

"Y- Yeah," he agreed, because it wasn't like her suddenly being revealed as a girl changed much of what they'd gone through.

"Great, then, bye!" she yelled back to him as a parting goodbye, already up and running to hug her mother, lobbing something in his direction.

Startled, Sasori caught it without letting his surprise show, like a good shinobi.

She waved to him until they rounded the corner and vanished out of sight, covered by stone walls and the scrubby vegetation that managed to eke out a living in the arid Suna climate.

He didn't wave in return, but he watched her leave.

A glance downwards showed the lobbed object to be a sphere of sand, most likely what she'd been working on.

Then the sphere exploded.

Covered in sand, eyes squeezed tightly shut, Sasori waited for the assault to be over, and then slowly shook himself off, making sure to wipe his eyes.

"Art is an explosion, huh?" he murmured to himself, a quirk to his lips that he'd forever deny.

.

.

.

"Who was that boy you were playing with in the sand, Musume-chan? Oh, look, you're all covered in it," Shinsei Hisoka sighed fondly, affection evident in the way she gently picked off a few flecks of the sand from her daughter's shoulders.

Deidara smiled sunnily up at her, one hand clutching her mother's as they crossed the narrow Suna streets, heading towards their hotel.

"His name's Sasori and he's my age and he's, like, way too serious all the time, but he knows the importance of art and can be fun at times even if plays dirty by pulling my hair but that's okay because I shoved his face into the sand and got him to laugh and did you know that he thought I was a boy until you showed up and called me?"

She paused for a massive intake of breath, gazing at her expectantly.

"How interesting, Musume-chan," Hisoka obliged.

That was apparently her cue to continue, because Deidara then shot off onto another fast-paced ramble.

Hisoka smiled down at her.

Ah, how she adored her cute little Ra-chan.

"So adorable," she cooed, ruffling her sand-spiked locks.

Her daughter humored her with a good-natured hug and another smile.

"-so then it turns out I'm actually older than him but he kept calling me a brat anyway and said he was more mature than I am which was so not true even if he used bigger words than I did but I could still understand him anyway and he looked so surprised when I used 'social expectancies' or something like that anyway I think I forgot by now and did you know that he doesn't have a favorite food?"

"Very interesting, Musume-chan."

"And it all started with me throwing some sand in his face because he was being all stuffy and-"

They walked off, hand-in-hand, mother gliding and daughter half-running.

.

.

.

"Had fun today, Sori-kun?" Moto Sadao politely asked over dinner, worn and beginning to look slightly gaunt from his work.

Tensions were heating up; a war was almost guaranteed to break about by two years' time, if not earlier.

With any luck, though, he wouldn't be deployed until things really got going, allowing him some more precious time with his family.

Reminded, he shared a loving smile with his charming wife, wishing this peace could last longer, however tenuous.

"Oh, yes, I sent you out to socialize today, didn't I? How'd it go, Sa-chan? Make any friends? Meet any new people? Perhaps a lovely little girl around your age?" Moto Akira joked lightly, her long black hair not hiding the bags forming under her eyes.

Her mother-in-law was busy tonight, buried to her neck in Council meetings, leaving her to make a simple three-person meal instead; Chiyo would probably eat from a foodstand near the Council Building, or mooch off her colleagues.

She didn't really expect her antisocial son to answer positively, and was thus understandably stunned when he did.

"Yes. Her name is Deidara, she's from Iwa with her mother, visiting here for the next two days because her mother is involved in negotiations of some sort. She likes explosions, bakudan, dislikes being called a brat, and is thoroughly immature while remaining one of the smarter people around my age that I've met," he listed, sounding for all the world like he was giving a report in his detached, flat monotone.

He chewed thoughtfully on his pickled plums, and then added with a slightly more energetic tone, "She appreciates art, even if her idea of it is completely wrong."

(Which appeared to be his explanation for everything.)

Sadao raised an eyebrow noiselessly at Akira, gesturing over the ducked head of their child.

Akira raised a mirroring eyebrow and lifted an arm in an one-armed shrug, with a wry smile.

'Seems to be doing him some good, anyway,' she mouthed. 'And I wouldn't object to a daughter-in-law sooner than later.'

'I can't imagine Sasori ever dating anyone,' he confessed in a similar fashion. 'He's so focused and quiet like my father; his grandfather.'

They shared parental looks, and then glanced at Sasori, who remained ignorant to the remarks passing overhead.

"I'll be meeting with her tomorrow," he spoke up again, lifting his head from his food, to the sight of his father and mother acting innocent.

He gazed at him with furrowed brows, but ultimately dismissed their strange behavior and picked up another cabbage leaf.

'Ohmykamiohmykamiahhhhhthisissocute!' Akira air-squealed, fanning herself with a manic smile and zealous eyes. 'Whoever this 'Deidara' is, I so ship it!'

'They're only five!' Sadao protested, sweat-dropping at his complacent wife's enthusiasm. 'That's far too young for a relationship; it's probably just one of those childish friendships that are struck up in hours and last for only a few hours more!'

'Doesn't mean I can't start nudging them towards it!' she retorted. 'If he really takes after his grandfather so much, then we'll have to wait until he's 28 and someone asks him out first after years of waiting for him to make the first move; besides, this is his first friend that isn't Komushi, so we should be encouraging him as his parents!'

"Hey, darling?" Akira said, directed towards Sasori.

"Kaa-san?" he tilted his head in answer.

She smiled sweetly, clasping her hands together.

"How would you like for me to make two bentos tomorrow? You and Deidara-chan could eat together! Don't forget to introduce us sometime soon, I'm sure her mother is a very nice person."

Sasori, inexplicably, felt like he was signing away on something very important when he nodded yes in an otherwise indifferent acceptance.

It gave him the chills, and he made sure to burrow tighter into his blankets that night.

* * *

 _ **#**_

 _ **#**_

' _ **Shinsei' means 'nova', at least that's how I interpreted it.**_

 _ **Nova as in star, as in dying nova, as in the gigantic explosion from that.**_

' _ **Moto' as in 'base', 'origin', 'root'.**_

 _ **The start of something, and at the time I thought it had a connection to immortality, but I'm sleep-deprived right now and am too tired to make sense of the words in my head.**_

 _ **So, yeah.**_

 _ **This will kinda be like 'Academia', just lighter and fluffier and there's nothing even remotely resembling a plot.**_

 _ **Like, at all.**_

 ** _'Evidence' was supposed to be, like, him demanding evidence of her being a girl, but this was already too long and I wanted to post it, so feel free to interpret that however you'd like now._**

 _ **#**_

 _ **#**_

 _ **-Reviews. Reviews. Reviews.-**_


	2. Offensive

**Summary:**

 _Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5 when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though._

* * *

Bi-village friendships were difficult to carry on, complications added if they weren't civilians, and if the villages were rivals

Deidara and Sasori weren't civilians, so at this point the only thing in their favor was that Iwa and Suna weren't particularly antagonistic.

Their letters were still read and subjected to various safety inspections before being delivered, but that was only to be expected, what with all the security leaks always happening between the Great Five countries.

If something was considered too sensitive, or if the inspector was simply being a jerk, sentences would be blacked out.

Burned or cut out if the matter was _very_ sensitive, however, in that case, the letter would probably be confiscated and the offenders would be pulled into their respective Kage's office.

When first exchanging letters, there had been words blacked out, mostly from slight information given away about the Academy and certain drills or ninja traditions that could be taken advantage of.

(Iwa was considerably more paranoid than Suna, though not to say that Suna wasn't rather strict and wary as well.

They weren't kidding about Konoha being the 'nicest' of the Great Five.

In fact, one of the major reasons that the two had even been cleared for exchanging letters had been because it could potentially set the path for an alliance, them being a Kekkei Genkai-bearing child from an important Clan who've historically been the backbone of the prestigious Explosion Corps, and a prodigious grandchild of a legendary puppeteer being considered for Kazekage and definitely en route to being a Council Elder.

Investing in the next generation and all that jazz.)

Later, adapting and adjusting accordingly, fewer and fewer words had been blacked out, them getting the hang of what was considered okay and what was not to send.

.

.

.

Sasori wasn't dumb, after all; he'd become Genin at 7 and Chuunin at 8 not just because of his ancestry and the need for more soldiers.

He'd always, to some point, been overshadowed by Granny Chiyo's legacy.

It just took a few years for him to start resenting it, and wanting to be recognized as a good shinobi in his own right.

Practicing, practicing, constantly practicing and inventing and innovating in an effort to get ahead and stay ahead.

To create his own legend, his own _legacy_ , to be famed and feared like Granny Chiyo had been in her prime.

She was _still_ famed and feared, nevermind that she was nearly in her fifties and aging stopped for no one.

He wanted that sort of eternal recognition, that sort of immortality birthed from stories and songs and hushed warnings hissed in the dark.

 _Art is eternal._

Sasori longed for that kind of eternity.

Refining chakra strings, recalculating the amount of puppets used at a time, reestablishing the lines of possibility and improbability.

It felt _good_ , each achievement, each award and compliment.

He was doing something _right_.

It felt _good_ , but slowly, slowly, the warm rush of quiet pride waned with each new poison, each new puppet, each new rise in notoriety.

Looking around him, he realized people were so generally so easily swayed, so fickle, all sheep or wolves with the minds of sheep nevertheless.

'Generally', meaning 'exceptions', but those subtly uncomfortable and disgusted looks that happened when he unveiled a new poison, more painful and quicker and easier to apply, _those_ looks were the ones that impacted him.

He knew, just _knew_ , that he had to keep his idea of human puppets as quiet as possible, for as long as possible, at least enough for him to make plans and back-up plans and more plans for the back-up plans, in case everything was FUBAR'd.

Those looks were so different than the ones given to Granny Chiyo, and soon he no longer felt anything positive when he was welcomed happily by people who were grateful of his help in the wartime effort, his help using the very poisons that they'd flinched away from.

It was just vaguely annoying now, and that state of constant annoyance provoked him into becoming even more of a shut-in, which just inspired more rumors and uneasiness.

People weren't comfortable with things they can't keep in relative sight.

A vicious cycle.

.

.

.

Deidara, too, might have been impulsive and loud and mischievous, but she had a brain behind all that blond, and made more use of it than anyone accredited to her.

She'd always, to some point, been disadvantaged by her gender in a patriarchal Clan that believed strongly in women being the weaker sex.

It was a common problem in the ninja profession, and true to the extent of physical ability for the most part.

Kunoichi had needed to fight twice as hard, be twice as ruthless, twice as clever, to be recognized as something of _value_ other than mere Seduction Corps fodder.

(Not that there was anything _wrong_ with the Seduction Corps.

They were perhaps the most underestimated.

A member of the Seduction Corps had to be a master at emotional control, a master at acting.

Seduction isn't simply sex.

It's about gaining another's trust, about keeping your cover under pressure, about making sure not to compromise yourself accidentally with the cliche of falling in love with a target.

The Seduction Corps were made of cold, cruel women and men who smiled sweetly and whispered promises of love and shone eyes of trust and kissed you softly before carving out your heart with those same sweet smiles.

'Seducing' is just another method of assassination or theft or spying.

Deidara herself had actually been assigned some low-level seduction-classed missions.

Most every kunoichi had taken on a few in their life, as another remnant of the lingering prejudices of what being a kunoichi was about.

She was noted as not having much emotional or impulse control, so hers were simple, quick ones, about a little bit of flirting and giggling and coy head-tilts, luring around a corner for a swift slash of the throat.

Done under two days, max, and nearly always civilians with low defences who pissed off the wrong person.

There was a disappointing amount of explosions during that sort of mission, but Deidara personally found an amusing kind of thrill about fooling someone like that, and she wasn't cleared for the sex-based ones, so she was rather ambiguous about completing them.

Sasori thought of it as a quite embarrassing moment in his life, however, when shortly after he hit 13, Granny Chiyo had been approached about putting him in the Seduction Corps for an apprenticeship.

She'd rejected the offer fast enough, being against bi-Corp membership, and Sasori was already in the Puppet Corps.

Not that that stopped her from poking fun at her too-pretty-for-his-own-good fangirl-attracting grandson.)

Luckily, the Explosion Corps were of the mind that as long as you were great at making things blow up and could get out of the blast radius in time, you weren't a complete idiot, and thus would be fine for the time being.

Life expectancy rates for the Explosion Corps weren't exactly the best, meaning you had to be either insanely skilled or partly-suicidal or, preferably, both, to accept their recruitment pitch.

(And she was damn good at the art of making things blow up.

 _Katsu._ )

She did her best to compensate for her short-comings, determined to live as long as possible and be as amazing as possible just to spite the hell out of her family.

(Not to spite her mother, never to spite her mother.

Her mother was dead, anyway, dead when she was 31 and Deidara was 10, a casualty from a skirmish around Kumo borders.

Deidara had very calmly taken the Explosion Corps' offer of entrance, and moved out from the Shinsei Compound, before requesting a demolition mission and venting out _her anger her stress her sorrow her grieving_ by exploding forests to smithereens.

Did wonders for anger management therapy.)

Being a primarily long-range fighter, her best defense against mid-range or close-combat attacks was dodging.

Which meant speed.

A lot of it.

Also, flexibility.

Way more than she wanted, but in the end, she could proudly contort into a human pretzel and _still_ manage to roll away from a hit.

Second-best defense would be sealing hundreds of her smaller clay creations into her skin, of varying potency.

If someone got too close, a surge of chakra through her arms or legs or neck or any bare patch of skin that could be covered with a storage seal, would send out swarms of insect-shaped, mice-shaped, snake-shaped, rat-shaped, bird-shaped, etc. bombs, an offensive defense that bought her time to unseal a getaway hawk-hybrid.

Sasori had commented more than once that the number of back-up unsealed clay animals she kept on her was overkill.

Bombs plaited into her hair, bombs masquerading as bracelets, rings, necklaces, armlets, anklets, hair-ties, hairpins, amulets, even as gems adorning clothes and luggage.

She'd retorted that the amount of weaponry he crammed into his puppets was overkill as well, but you don't see _her_ saying anything about it, do you?

Blades, shuriken-launchers, senbon firers, pre-sealed elemental attacks, a truly ridiculous amount of knives and kunai, edged fans, something lethal squeezed into every joint and nook and cranny, all tipped with his array of the nastier personal poisons.

They agreed that both were overkill, and agreed to disagree on whose overkill was more justified.

(They agreed to disagree on many things.)

* * *

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 _If you see typos, I'd be very grateful for you to point them out._

 _I'd always thought that Deidara's bombs, since they could be of varying potency and took on the traits of their intended form, could've been way more versatile than he used them. Like Sai's ink drawings that could hear and remember things, dissolving into the words of what they heard, Deidara's canon bombs appeared to have at least some sentience, being able to understand the orders they were given. This chapter reflected my belief in their versatility, I suppose._

 _The difference between Deidara and Sasori's fighting styles is that Deidara aims for lethal blows as soon as possible, because her only 'paralyzing' option would be to get one of her large clay snakes to wrap securely around her opponent, and that takes too much time to completely mummify them. There's also always the possibility of them having a jutsu that can break them out, or simply being strong enough to break. So she aims for fast kills, because she has no good 'capture' options, and leaving her opponents more time to plan how to kill her doesn't make sense to her._

 _Sasori, meanwhile, has plenty of 'capture' and 'paralyzation' options, as well more than a few lethal moves, so he has a better-balanced moveset than she has. His fighting philosophy is also different; he'll aim to kill as efficiently and as quickly as possible, but if someone is surprisingly resilient or manages to impress him, he'll start drawing it out, using his infamous poisons to slowly disable them, giving them an inevitable death. Then their corpse is added as a human puppet, or, well, they will be, as soon as he starts making them and deserts. In spars he aims for the quickest victories, not deaths, because he'd only spar with those he respected._

 _Out of the both of them, he's the crueler one; Deidara doesn't the right mindset for being purposely cruel, even in canon, while he was not completely right in the head and was definitely a pyromaniac to some extent, he was never cruel solely to be cruel or because he could. Sasori in 'Inside Out' had exposure to another friend from when he was young, so while he's definitely not kind, he thinks things over a bit more, and is better at hiding his tendencies to want to cut open a human and find what makes them tick so fascinatingly._

 _Ages:_

 _Last chapter they were 5. This chapter is after Deidara's mother (Hisoka) died, but before Sasori made Komushi into a human puppet and started thinking about defection, and after he was approached at 13. So, consider it around 14, since Sasori defects at 15 according to canon._

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 ** _-Review. Favorite. Follow. Review. Favorite. Review. Review. Review. Review.-_**

 ** _-Illuminati and Big Brother are watching you to make sure you review. So review. Now.-_**


	3. Joint

**Summary:**

 _Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5 when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though._

* * *

"Hey," he'd asked her one time, in person, because this was a question he couldn't ask through the definitely-read letters they sent.

It was a cool day, after a morning rain, about to rain again before the foggy sunset.

A last-minute, unplanned meeting in an isolated Mizu bar, out-of-way and far from both of their homecountries.

She, heading back from a mission, long-haired and one-eyed, fifteen and bursting with dreams and wickedly charming.

He, heading to a mission, short-haired and baby-faced, fifteen and full of ambition and angelically beautiful.

No other ninja around for miles.

Shizuku was a small farming village that did their fair bit of fishing and pearl-diving and treasure scavenging.

Nobody went to the tiny isle of Shizuku; they just stopped by on their way to greater things and better places and less damp lodgings, a brief pit-stop that was unlikely to be remembered in the long run.

People in Shizuku were curt and glum and constantly in some varying degree of wetness.

They minded their own business, knowing that nosiness never resulted in anything good.

The bartender (who owned Shizuku's only bar, restaurant, grocery store, and hotel) was no different.

He'd very considerately left into the backroom, leaving Sasori and Deidara to talk quietly over their lukewarm meals and watery sake, hair dripping onto their standard black rain slickers, a ninja staple for those venturing into Mizu no Kuni.

"What, yeah?" she answered absently, busy wringing out her blond braid, hood down from her cloak.

"What are your feelings towards Iwa and Suna?"

She eyed him with a slight frown, probably trying to figure out where he was going with this.

There was something about village loyalties and opinions that brought even the best of friends on guard, especially when they weren't of the same village.

"Iwa's my home, even if they can't appreciate the wonders of my art, yeah. Suna's alright, I guess, I mean, you're from Suna and they haven't exactly attacked us yet, not like those Konoha and Kumo bastards, yeah. Kami-damned war is driving me to split-ends," Deidara off-handedly commented, piling her hair into a soggy bun, speaking clearly through a mouthful of prickly-sharp hairpins.

A very neutral reply, to be sure.

Sasori decided to be upfront, trusting that he had an accurate enough character-count of his generally unpredictable friend.

"I'm going to leave Suna," he said, carefully watching her half-turned face for her reaction.

Deidara was a person who wore her emotions like she wore everything: tastefully, impulsively, confidently, and just flamboyant enough to be attractive.

Just... not now.

She choked, a hacking, spluttering sound, like a crossbreed of a foghorn and a duck giving it's dying wheeze, her partly-done bun spilling out as she let go of her hands, bluebell eyes blinking rapidly and spitting out a couple of pins onto the rickety table.

"I'm sorry, my hearing must be clogged up from this mist, because I could've _sworn_ that you just said you were going to _defect_ , yeah," she hissed lowly, tone incredulous, picking up her hairpins and pinning down her hairbun much quicker than before.

Defection was a serious crime, amplified in severity of punishment by the cutthroat wartime atmosphere and overall grim attitude.

"You didn't hear wrong," Sasori refuted calmly, glancing at his drink with distaste. "I'm going to defect from Suna."

Groaning, she looked like she wished she hadn't pinned up her hair just yet, settling for running her hands distractedly over the smooth sides of the drawn-back tresses.

"Okay," she accepted, wary and unsure of how to react, "When, yeah? Where to? And why are you telling me this, yeah? What did Suna do to make their famous 'Sasori of the Red Sands' gonna leave them in the lurch while a war's going on?"

He laced his fingers together, resting his chin lightly against them.

"Soon. Not now, but soon. I'm leaving… because I never had much loyalty to Suna in the first place, and objectively, during wartime is the perfect moment to defect, since they'll be too caught up in wartime efforts to hunt down their missing-nin. Especially their S-rank missing-nin. Everyone else will be too busy to hunt me down for a bounty, as well.

"Where to? Nowhere in particular. I'm not defecting to somewhere, I'm just defecting from. They don't understand my art, and I can see in their eyes that they're starting to fear my human puppets. Very likely they'll ban them after this war ends, so I'm running on a limited schedule.

"As for why I'm telling you… Tell me, Deidara, do you have a very strong bond to your village? Your village that doesn't understand your art, either? They call you crazy and they call me ruthless and they call us both psychotic. We're ninja, we're supposed to be those things. They don't understand art. And what would you do with this information of my future defection? Would you really hand me in and go to the higher authorities?"

Deidara eyed him again.

Then she gulped down her watery sake, gulped down his for good measure, and sighed.

"If that was your speech to convince me to defect with you, you really suck at it, yeah. But I guess I _am_ crazy, because I'm going to say yes. Yes, fine, whatever. When we doin' this thing? Together or what?"

Sasori didn't smile, but the corner of his lips lifted up in something that fiercely resembled a smirk.

"We can hammer out the details tonight. Can you stay for the night in this hotel? Eat your food before it gets even colder, brat."

"Hey! I'm not a brat, yeah, in fact I'm 6 months and 3 days older than you!"

"And yet I'm still infinitely more mature than you."

They laughed, and traded away thoughts of their serious conversation in favor of light-hearted chatter, temporarily lifting their battle-beaten spirits.

The bartender came out of the backroom and offered them refills, which they hastily turned down.

(Kami, Shizuku's sake was awful, and Deidara soon regretted downing those two cups for courage, after she threw up the mushy dinner the next day.

Or maybe it was just the mushiness of the dinner.

Water-logged over-boiled vegetables and salty grains don't make for very good sustenance, but it was all that Shizuku had, unfortunately.)

* * *

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 ** _Double-update, whoo..._**

 ** _World-building._**

 ** _Sasori giving not half-bad recruitment speeches._**

 ** _Deidara being a born critic of recruitment speeches._**

 ** _And... dealing with the subject of defections._**

 ** _So, Deidara is apparently rather capable with going-with-the-flow, and Sasori trusts her enough to tell her about it._**

 ** _Well, it's more like he knows that there's no harm in telling her since she's Iwa and why would Iwa care about a Suna missing-nin other than Suna losing an A-rank soldier?_**

 ** _Also, in canon, Deidara doesn't really have any particular ties with Iwa; he seems perfectly fine with stealing the kinjutsu and then fleeing to some temple to make bombs for terrorists, bombing Iwa as he left to stop pursuers._**

 ** _Here, I made Deidara born about 15+ years earlier, as well a genius in her clan's Explosion Release (although we don't know if canon!Deidara's hand-mouths are a bloodline or if he has a clan or whatever), so the kinjutsu will be different. I'm imagining it being made from studies of her abilities and techniques, and then she plans to steal the half-finished notes on the night she leaves, because hey, she's defecting anyway._**

 ** _Onoki isn't her teacher (he's about 40-something when she's 9) for a couple of reasons regarding her clan and her gender and his prospects for Tsuchikage. So, 1. he's too busy with the war and preparing to take office, 2. the Shinsei wouldn't let her be apprenticed, anyway, and 3. the 'kunoichi are weaker' belief is still floating around. He knows of her, though, since the Explosion Corps have their eye on her, and he's a higher-up in the Corps before he leaves when she's around 13, because he needs more time for his becoming-Tsuchikage lessons, as well as being more near the frontlines of combat as the war worsens._**

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 ** _-Review. Favorite. Follow. Review. Favorite. Review. Review. Review. Review.-_**


	4. Leisure

**Summary:**

 _Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5 when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though._

* * *

Contrary to popular expectation, Deidara is not the heavy metal music type, containing guttural roaring and metal clashing and something hard smashing something else very hard and pitchy strums with background explosions.

She actually likes to listen to catchy, fast-paced, upbeat songs.

What kind of song doesn't really matter, only that they're catchy, fast-paced, and upbeat.

The lyrics could be about murder and death, or there could be no lyrics at all.

So long as it's catchy, fast-paced, and upbeat.

Upbeat as in a light-sounding rhythm; not, as in, the other definition.

Radio, anime, movies, folksongs…

The Elemental Nations didn't have very good reception in general, for fear of enemy interference, but technology like televisions and radios programmed with civilian content were considered safe enough to be widespread.

(Actress Fujikaze Yukie, when she began acting shortly after the Third Great Shinobi War ended, would eventually revolutionize the movie industry, before going on to revolutionize the technology industry as the princess of tech-savvy Land of Snow, now the Land of Spring.)

Sasori, meanwhile, lives up exactly to popular expectation, being the peaceful traditional instrumental type.

He claimed that the soothing, slow, calm notes of the biwa and kugo were extremely conductive to a working scenario of him repairing or creating his puppets.

 _She_ claimed he was just a depressing fuddy-duddy, but eventually, under threat of poisoning, conceded that there _was_ something rather nice about listening to the serene melodies and blended harmonies.

Even if she still preferred her quick-paced songs.

(Which may or may not have to do with the way that they got her humming all day and annoying the hell out of everyone else within hearing range of her.)

* * *

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 ** _Because if you know someone's taste in music, apparently in modern America that means you suddenly know their personality._**

 ** _Or maybe that's just my own observation._**

 ** _I mean, I like everything except rap and things with a lot of cursing, and I generally listen to whatever everybody else wants; what does that say about me?_**

 ** _Triple-update..._**

 ** _Even if this is short and more like an actual drabble than my one-shots masquerading as one._**

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 ** _-Review. Favorite. Follow. Review. Favorite. Review. Review. Review. Review.-_**


	5. Hair

**Summary:**

 _Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5 when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though._

* * *

It was indisputable that Deidara had the best hair possible in the entire Elemental Nations, even at 13 years and 3/4 months.

Easily reaching knee-length when let down, it managed to retain all of its glossy shine, smooth luster, silken texture, and perfectly split-end-free softness.

She smugly proclaimed it to be the result of special shampoo, custom-ordered conditioner, regular brushing with a bone comb, good genetics, and ' _pure fucking amazingness and sheer skill_ '.

(When asked what kind of bone the comb was made of, she'd breezily answered, "Does it really matter if it's human or animal? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust and all that. Frankly, whoever or whatever the bone is from should be _honored_ they have the privilege of brushing this gorgeous hair.")

The latter referring to how she, a kunoichi and killer by trade, could afford to upkeep such extravagantly long hair, even if most of the time it was either bound into an intricate bun or allowed to hang loose in a long braid.

And it was true.

Deidara had reached A-rank, and was predicted to become S-rank fairly soon, the rising star of Iwagakure wielding their Explosion Corps' most signature Kekkei Genkai; she had _earned_ the right to have a potential combat safety-risk hanging around, and it was just another silent brag.

Arrogant, maybe.

But, well, no one had ever accused Deidara of lacking confidence.

It helped that she was a long-distance fighter, bombing from above, usually safely out of reach.

Her own special trick was always keeping an assortment of different-grade clay animals entwined with her braid, carefully painted to match her cornsilk strands.

If someone managed to get close-up, her go-to strategy was to let the snakes, the spiders, the ants and bees and newts and eels slither out from her hair, covering her exit with flashy obscuring smoke and plenty of very-much-fatal explosions in her wake.

She had hundreds more stored on her at any given moment, sealed away in scrolls, sometimes being sealed away in larger scrolls, and dozens sealed directly into her skin.

Preparedness was key, and her Kekkei Genkai made it viable to prepare most of her attacks well beforehand, leaving her more than enough chakra to burn in making more.

It wasn't exactly what one would think of when they heard the words, 'weaponized hair'.

That would be Jiraiya, the Toad Sannin.

Still, interpreted less literally, it was correct.

.

.

.

Sasori had, actually, a five-and-counting years back, asked Deidara once if he could have some of her hair for a couple of his puppets.

"Human hair is preferable to any other hair," he'd explained, "because it adds a spectrum of reality, making it more difficult to see it is a puppet. Better for infiltration, and other things along the same line, than animal fur or dyed fibers would be. I've been working on covering up the joint-lines, too, which are another dead giveaway."

If it had been anyone other than Sasori (and her mother, theoretically) asking her for her hair, she'd have automatically turned them down.

Her hair was a status symbol: showing her skill in lasting in the ninja profession, showing the vanity she could afford to upkeep.

(A certain element of sentiment was involved, too, even if she wouldn't easily admit it.

It might be childish, but at that time they were children, just 8 and already fighting in a war that wasn't their own to inherit.

Her mother always said she loved Deidara's soft hair, constantly brushing and braiding it.

And she, well, she greatly respected her mother's opinions on everything and anything.)

"How about this," she'd compromised, lounging on the tree branch above him (they were in one of the minor countries along the Earth-Wind borders, resting after running missions in Konoha; they weren't allowed to tell the classified contents, but Suna and Iwa weren't really fighting each other, and it was easy to guess that they had both run sabotage missions), and contemplatively running a hand over the smooth ribbed expanse of her braided ponytail.

"If I ever decide to cut it, or rather, _have_ to cut it, yeah, I'll save it for you, okay?"

He'd returned her smile with a thinner one, privately uneasy.

Whatever could make her cut her precious hair was guaranteed to be an injury, or if not a physical one, than a mental or emotional one.

Should he be happy his request was somewhat granted, or should he be worried about how it would be eventually granted?

It was wartime, and while Deidara was good for her age, she had was also arrogant and overconfident and still so _youn_ g.

N- Not that Sasori cared too much about what happened to the loud blond brat who thought art was an _explosion_ , of all things.

But…

She was tolerable in small doses, and at least she could properly appreciate the importance of art, unlike most of the people he was unfortunate enough to have to be acquainted with.

So it was in his best interests to keep around a fellow artist he could stand, and that was all there was to it.

Really.

"Okay," he quietly consented.

"What's with the gloom?" she quickly teased, leaning down from her perch to flick at his flak jacket, a flick he swiftly evaded.

Tossing her long braid over her left shoulder, swaying amid the leafy branches, Deidara cheered, "Congrats on making Chuunin, yeah? That's new. Fresh from a promotion, finally."

He neutrally jabbed, "Says the one who's still a Genin. I outrank you now, don't I?"

"Just you wait and see, yeah!" she scowled, mood changing abruptly, raking her fingers viciously through a tangle in her hair and flashing her fingers into a twisting motion, resulting in a lob-throw movement.

Knowing better than to let her throw anything at him, especially anything she'd taken from her hair, Sasori wisely dodged once more, lashing out with chakra strings to hit the three objects off to his side, where they exploded into puffs of smoke.

"Are you trying to kill me again?" he dryly demanded.

She pouted and whined, "They were just some little itsy bitsy smoke bombs, C-.5, not even any force behind them like a C-1, yeah. Well… not _much_ , anyway. You could of at least let me hit you _once_ with them, yeah. Not like they'd hurt you with your shiny new jacket."

"Is that jealousy I hear, brat?"

"Stop calling me a brat, yeah!"

They devolved into a scuffle.

When not going for lethal or the more powerful injury-inflicting moves, Sasori won 7/10, since Deidara's jutsus were nearly all meant to destroy, not capture without grievous injury, though she did have some animal-bombs that could coil around someone.

It's usually a competition to see if she can destroy all of his puppets and/or catch him with a large clay constrictor-snake and/or make him surrender before he can nick her with a paralytic and/or cast something to disorient her beyond fighting capability.

She was working on learning some other things to add to her moveset, but at age 8 she relied almost solely on her Explosion Release.

Meanwhile, Sasori had the versatile chakra strings, his puppets, and his wide array of poisons, many of which were meant to disable to make it easier to take prisoners on the battlefield.

Understandably, it ended with Deidara stomping off in a huff and Sasori smugly marking down another win for himself.

Also, mentally marking down on his to-do list to gather a lot of wood before moving on from the area.

He had to repair all of the puppets Deidara had damaged/broken, of course.

(Totally worth it to prove the superiority of his art.)

.

.

.

Months later, a couple days past his 13th birthday, instead of the letter he was accustomed to, he was instead given a box at the post office, which by now was a one-room shack with parcels spilling out the back door onto the tarp-covered shady area behind it.

(All non-vital spaces had been taken over for the war effort, as temporary housing, temporary infirmaries, temporary storehouses, all temporary, temporary, temporary.

People were starting to lose hope, though, lose faith in the 'temporary' status not turning into ' **permanent** '.

The war effort had taken up 6 years, thousands of lives, miles of square feet, far too much money, and most of the positivity from everyone.

In Iwa, battlefield corpses were starting to be burned and placed in containers before being sealed away, in order to preserve storage scrolls and graveyard clearance.

Suna was just either leaving the bodies to mummify under the ground, or burning them and mixing the ashes with the sand.

Kiri supposedly pushed them off into the water to save on land capacity, Konoha zealously guarded their fallen no matter the amount of storage scrolls they needed [which wasn't a problem for them and their resident sealmasters], and who _knew_ what Kumo did, up in their lofty mountains all blocked off by the neutral Land of Frost and by vast ocean on three sides of their isolated peninsula.)

A weary, injured ninja, probably a Chuunin declared unfit for further duty due to her lost leg and hand, nudged a beaten-up cardboard ensemble, taped together with copious amounts of duct-tape, towards him after he gave his ID and showed his hitai-ate for security purposes.

"Enemy ninja are starting to go after the courier ninja," she grimly explained upon seeing his eyes move, gravitating to the scatterings of maroon staining the brown-and-silver of the cardboard and duct-tape.

Tapping it with her surviving hand, she further elaborated with a gesture of her other wrist stub, "We've been sending what help we can, as stretched thin as we are, and it seems like we've gained at least a little favor with the them. Reports say they've officially blacklisted Kiri and Kumo from their services, and might start refusing Iwa any service if they don't stop antagonizing them as they cross their border.

"The bans are temporary, of course, since the courier nin can't afford to keep on refusing service after the war ends, but they _also_ can't afford losing any more members right now, so they're starting to lock down.

"You're lucky; your package made it through without too many problems, and the deliverer was only shallowly injured. If he'd died in the process, all his packages would've been lost in transit, either left abandoned or seized by the attackers for intelligence. They're supposedly going to start trapping their packages to automatically blow up when the courier dies, and they'll be alerted by some special seal to know which shipments need to be issued an apology."

Sasori nodded thoughtfully and took the box, with a quiet murmur of "thanks."

Both for the information and as courtesy for doing her job.

(Duty, duty, duty... everything was a duty nowadays. Combat vets chipping in however they could, active ninja only retired once they were as grievously injured as the post office woman had been. Even then, the 'retired' ones were still given positions like that, filling in for civilian casualties or to free up another ninja to be sent into the warzone. Genin as young as 6, speed-rushed through the Academy and shoved out into battle, destined to die, afraid and weak, like all prey in this world of legends.)

Walking out of the office, he glanced up at the sky, one arm shading his eyes from the glare, and estimated that he had about an hour left before he had to report back to the barracks and receive his assignment; border patrol again, most likely.

Skirmishes were more numerous and more vicious day by day.

Sunagakure's obvious position from an aerial view was only balanced by their relative secrecy from a grounded view.

Gaze returning to the parcel, continuing to walk forward, Sasori waited until he was seated in his uniform gray bunk, the stiff mattress unyielding under him, to open the taped-shut flaps of the package.

A standard-issue shuriken, being flatter than the diamond-shaped kunai, was used to neatly slice it open, fitting smoothly under the folds.

He replaced the shuriken, mindful of careful weapon handling policies, and unfolded the flaps without any particular particular anticipation other than a faint curiosity.

It was most likely something Deidara had sent him as a birthday present; he personally didn't put much stock in celebrating birthdays, and he wasn't quite sure if she cared much, either, but she was peculiar like that, and a spontaneous action like a gift was along the lines of her spontaneous personality.

Looking down, he paused.

Sasori blinked, slowly, and reached in with a perfect-complexioned hand, just as slowly, dropping it onto his lap.

Fine, sleek ends tickled his palm, pliable flaxen strands burying his fingers into the supple fluidity, woven sunlight pooling over the sides of his legs.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Sasori-san! The Captain is asking for you to come now for help in breaking down a new poison! Report to the south-west labs, and disregard reporting for your assignment today!"

Blinking again, as if landing back in reality, Sasori delicately lifted the long blond ponytail, shorn off into a sheer edge, back into the box it'd arrived in.

Then he quickly sealed it into a scroll, stashed the scroll into his box of puppet-making odds and ends, and hurried off to answer the Captain's call.

* * *

 ** _#_**

 ** _#_**

 ** _Quadruple-update, from saved-up snippets._**

 ** _Don't expect any more updates anytime soon. I'll probably work on finishing the Academia chapters cluttering up my docs._**

 ** _Yay, more world-building._**

 ** _The courier nin are neutral, yeah, but they also aren't just going to lie down and take any of that shit._**

 ** _Kinda like the Land of Frost (Iron) and their samurai's reaction to ninja in general: back the fuck off, buddy._**

 ** _Also, remember, Deidara is older than Sasori, so when it says a few days after his 13th birthday, that means it's been a couple of months since part 1 of this chapter._**

 ** _Correction for the chapter before this' endnote: Onoki is already the Third Tsuchikage before Deidara (or Sasori) was even born._**

 ** _#_**

 ** _#_**

 ** _-Review. Favorite. Follow. Review. Favorite. Review. Review. Review. Review.-_**


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